As the U.S. military buildup in the Iran war stretches into its eighth month, experts are sounding the alarm over what long, grueling deployments on aircraft carriers with few port calls are doing to the thousands of sailors and Marines serving on these ships.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the first carriers to be deployed to the waters off Iran when the airstrikes were launched on Feb. 28, came into the spotlight as the families of service members on the carrier raised concerns that the record-breaking deployment for most continuous days at sea was taking a toll on their loved ones.
In interviews, more than a dozen family members told MS NOW that one of their biggest worries was about their family members’ mental health and physical exhaustion.
“I’m very worried about fatigue,” a stepmother of a sailor who works on the Lincoln’s flight deck told MS NOW, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she was concerned the Navy would retaliate against the sailor because she spoke out. “As close as all those jets and helicopters are to one another and how they have to be so careful with every maneuver as well, loaded with ordnance — it’s a terrifying thought.”
Navy officials scrambled to reroute an aircraft carrier to relieve the Lincoln earlier than previously planned, after MS NOW reported on the concerns among military families about poor conditions, low supplies and fatigue aboard. The Lincoln stopped for a port call in Thailand in early September and is on its way to returning to its home port in San Diego.
Now the USS George H.W. Bush, another aircraft carrier dispatched to fight in the Iran war, is in a very similar situation to the Lincoln.
The crew of the Bush has been at sea with no port calls for 182 days. The last time the crew set foot on land was when they left their home port of Norfolk, Virginia, on March 31, according to Navy officials. Aircraft carriers typically stop in port every 30 to 45 days during deployments.
The Bush has already experienced one major accident during this deployment when an MH-60S helicopter crashed into the water after making an emergency water landing during a routine patrol on July 1. Three of the four crew members who were on the helicopter were rescued. The fourth, Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards, was never found. The Navy is still investigating that accident that occurred 90 days into the deployment. The cause of the crash remains unclear.
Deadly collisions
Without port calls and proper fatigue management practices, studies show that accidents happen with more frequency, says retired Capt. John Cordle, who spent 30 years in the Navy as a surface warfare officer.
“Fatigue management is not about coddling sailors or being soft; it’s about operational safety,” said Cordle, who was commissioned by the Navy to study the effect of fatigue on sailors after two of the deadliest noncombat-related incidents the Navy had experienced in decades.
In 2017, the USS Fitzgerald, a guided missile destroyer, collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship near Yokosuka, Japan, flooding the compartments of the ship where the sailors slept. Seven sailors drowned and three others were injured, including the commanding officer.
Two months later, the USS John McCain, another guided missile destroyer, collided with a Liberian-flagged oil tanker near Singapore. Again, the area where the sailors slept flooded and 10 sailors drowned.
Investigations found that fatigue was a factor in both incidents, and that the accidents were also a result of a high operational tempo, understaffing and inadequate rest policies. In both instances, the officer of the deck, who was responsible for leading the team that spots other vessels getting too close to the ship, did not react fast enough to the danger.
After the initial investigation into the 2017 collisions, the Navy hired Cordle as a civilian to be a “human factor engineer” and to come up with fatigue management best practices for the Navy.
After conducting research on sailors’ sleep patterns, he recommended different schedules for sailors’ work shifts based on the human body’s natural 24-hour circadian rhythm.
Previously, sailors would work for five hours and then have 10 hours off, which means the start time of their shifts would vary each day. This was found to not align with a natural circadian rhythm that in turn would affect a sailor’s alertness and performance. Instead, Cordle advised that other rotations of work and rest periods be implemented such as three hours of work followed by nine hours of rest.
Cordle interviewed many of the sailors who were on duty when the ship collisions occurred in 2017 and found that fatigue was a main factor in both of them. He said lack of sleep has been proven to have the same effect on reaction time, coordination and dexterity as alcohol.
“Your decision-making process is impacted, right? We have measurable changes in your reaction time, so think about a guy watching a radar or a gal watching a radar looking for a missile coming in and instead of paying attention, they’re experiencing microsleeps because the brain shuts down for a second or two,” Cordle said.
Dale Russell was Cordle’s counterpart, examining the effects of fatigue in the U.S. Navy fleet based on the West Coast.
Russell said that a study of 7,600 sailors aboard 73 ships found that many sailors were only getting five to six hours of sleep per day, 27% said fatigue frequently distracted them from their duties, 30% reported fighting sleep while on duty and 16% said they were often so exhausted that they could not function effectively.
“Fatigue was associated with reported safety incidents, near-misses and knowingly allowing safety problems to go unreported,” Russell said.
Sailors reported poor sleep due to the noise level on a ship, uncomfortable beds, the temperature, work demands, motion disturbances, an overconsumption of caffeine to compensate for tiredness and the lights being switched on and off by sailors on different schedules in the areas they are supposed to sleep, he said.
Both Russell and Cordle say the Navy did not make enough changes to manage fatigue, and in 2024, the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman had four separate incidents during its seven-month deployment that they say were exacerbated by exhaustion.
The Truman collided with another vessel and lost three aircraft, one from a friendly fire accident.
“I always tell people fatigue is normally not the cause of the accident, but it makes the accident more likely to happen,” Cordle said.
After Russell left his assignment in 2024 and Cordle left his in 2025, they say the Navy did not fill their jobs.
A Navy Surface Force spokesperson said the lessons from the 2017 collisions have “permanently transformed” how the Navy “approaches operational risk, watch standing, and human performance, as fatigue management is warfighting readiness.”
The Navy “maintains a number of personnel on staff, and partners with Navy commands and organizations, to manage fatigue and enhance crew endurance,” the spokesperson said.
‘Fatigue is like rust’
Russell and Cordle both said they are extremely worried about what these longer deployments with few opportunities for breaks off ship are doing to the crew of the carriers and their strike groups being deployed to the Iran war.
Cordle says exhaustion can lead to anxiety and burnout, which in turn can make it difficult to sleep even when sailors might get the opportunity to do so.
The result, he says, is what is called “droning,” which is “when you get by the day at the minimum level of energy that you can to kind of survive what you have to get done, but that’s not a good place to be if you’re fighting a war, if you’re supposed to be alert to incoming missiles and things like that.”
He says studies also show that extreme fatigue can lead to an increase in suicidal ideations, and in the long term, he believes all of this will have an effect on retention.
In a recent town hall with Navy sailors at various duty stations around the world, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told sailors that longer deployments will become more routine for the foreseeable future.
Adm. Caudle also said separately to reporters that the Navy is looking into alternative places in Kenya and India for aircraft carriers deployed to the Middle East to safely make a port call, after the Iran war has shut off easy access to ports of call in the Persian Gulf.
The Navy has also tried to find creative solutions to the lack of port calls.
Recently, the crew of the Bush had a four-day “staycation” that included an athletic competition among the crew’s departments, with challenges such as tug of war, volleyball and pushups, as well as a barbecue, according to a social media post on the ship’s Facebook page.
Cmdr. Joe Hontz, a Fifth Fleet Navy spokesperson, said the sailors of the USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike group have made significant contributions “often under demanding and sustained operational conditions. While the operational tempo remains high, leadership recognizes that providing the crew time to rest and recharge is essential to maintaining readiness and resilience. The recent ‘staycation’ is a great example of that commitment, giving Sailors an opportunity to decompress, reconnect with shipmates, and focus on their overall well-being.”
One mother of a sailor on the USS Bush, who spoke to MS NOW on the condition of anonymity over concerns that the Navy may retaliate against her son, said he had reported feeling extremely tired at the beginning of the deployment, when he was working 12-hour days, six days a week. She said leadership has since adjusted many sailors’ schedules to eight-hour shifts, six days a week.
Another Navy official said the USS Bush has an “aggressive safety program that actively contributes to mishap prevention.” When asked about the high pace of this year’s deployment, the official pointed to the crew having access to dozens of virtual mental health counselors while at sea.
But Cordle and Russell say chronic fatigue cannot be fixed with mental health counselors and that the Navy needs to prioritize rest and sleep if it wants to avoid potentially deadly and unnecessary accidents, especially at a time of war. They say that despite repeated recommendations and the Navy’s own investigations, there is still no comprehensive fatigue management policy.
“Fatigue is like rust — if it’s not dealt with, it will eventually erode readiness and lead to operational failure,” Cordle said.
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